Unseen, a night breeze picked up and scooted ripples across the pond. Scents drew Devin inward as only the olfactory sense can.

He smiled. The smell of wet and rotted logs told volumes of his youth, days spent sloshing where he ought not have been sloshing. The rankness of decay somehow didn’t trouble him then, even seemed to celebrate his youth and herald an unlimited future.

He winced. Reeds gave their distinctive odor, reminding him of switches he was sent to fetch. Switches painted his backside red more than once, more then twice, more than he could count. His father had always called it tough love; his mother had called it the devil in the rum.

He braced. Dust from the path beyond the water’s reach, dry and gritty, tickled his nostrils. In an instant he was back, surrounded by plains of desolation and waves of heat. No help could come in a place such as this, no easement.

He came back; she had drawn close. Lilac water, honeysuckle, and sweet womanly sweat. She smelled like salvation.